


pale as applesauce

by tatterdemalionAmberite (amberite)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, confusing alien emotions, horn rubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 10:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberite/pseuds/tatterdemalionAmberite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Strider and the troll disease called moirallegiance.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>"Hehehe, we're way paler than that, Karkles!"</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	pale as applesauce

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anonymousComrade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousComrade/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Of All This Blind Ambition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/193464) by [anonymousComrade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousComrade/pseuds/anonymousComrade). 



Terezi needs you and it's nothing like you thought it would be.

She's sprawled out on a pile of alchemized T-shirts with her head in your lap and her glasses folded next to her. The T-shirts keep coming out with the wrong band names and you just had them strewn around the room you’ve taken over until she came in and did the pile-making thing, which is a weird troll thing you don’t understand. 

It’s one of _many_ weird troll things you don’t understand. 

“Terezi.”

“MmmmhhfDaverrrrrrggh?” 

“I’m human, ok.”

“Hrhrmf.”

“You’re gonna have to read me the instruction manual.”

“Inshrctonmannl?” She’s half asleep. She needs the sleep, you realize; she's been awake too much looking after Karkat; and it makes you feel like an ass for asking, but this is just getting too weird. 

“This pale thing," you say. "No comprende. How does it work.” 

She blinks her empty red eyes open - something weirdly reflexive, when she can't see with them - and says, "Thought I already 'splained that." 

"You explained what it _is_ and what it's _for_ , but not what we're supposed to _do_. Since I think tonsil hockey is just not on? And that’s my modus operandi."

"Hehehe, I love it when you use human legal terms -"

"...I don’t even use any. That was actually kind of a cop show term. Modus operandi, I mean. And tonsil hockey is no kind of term, it's an ironic way to say kissing -”

"Too bad. I already love it, so there." She flops over and grabs your arm like a cat hanging onto a toy. 

"You're not explaining. This is dire. You gotta help me out here, ‘Rezi. My troll enculturation is at risk. I'm going to be forming my own concepts of moirallegiance and they’ll end up involving legalistic dirty-talk and licking things."

"Who says that’s a bad thing?" she says, but sighs anyway and settles into your lap further. "Rub my horns." 

"Please help me, teacher. I can't tell if that's an answer to my question or a random possibly creepy demand."

"It's both," she says, and grins. "Karkat is gonna laugh so hard when he hears I'm giving you pale lessons. I mean after he gets his thinkpan back anyway." 

You have the feeling you've just been called the equivalent of a clueless virgin, but you ignore the slight. "You seem so sure he's going to get better." 

"He _is_ getting better," she says, dreamily. "He went walking around on his own yesterday. Without me even asking. Because he wanted a snack. That's progress." She goes into telling you about how his daymares are getting fewer, easier to shake him out of. 

And you feel for the spot where jealousy should be - and it’s not. You're just oddly mesmerized. You don’t think you care how Karkat is doing, but it's like her plaintive voice digs into you and you _want_ to care how Karkat is doing. Which is weird as fuck. You try to muster your normal human emotions. Go go gadget jealousy? 

No. It's not happening. You're still left stranded in that weird, muffled yearning. 

A cool guy like you should totally be telling her Karkat is too high-maintenance, right about now. A cool guy like you should be trying to get laid. Instead you’re petting her forehead absentmindedly and she’s _purring_ and...

You’re not sure what stops you from trying to make out with her. Maybe going God Tier broke you. You resurrected mellower somehow. Or maybe it’s the way she explained moirallegiance. Like she’s a ticking time bomb going to go off if you don’t...

…if you don’t do this, whatever _this_ is, the thing that she wants from you.

But she doesn’t feel like a ticking time bomb. She feels like long straight hair wirier than human hair, and gleeful laughter, and the cool tickle of breath against your skin when she sniffs you. She’s saving Karkat from himself and she needs someone to save _her_ and you’re a Knight but not the kind in shining armor and she’s no fainting damsel and you don’t even understand the half of what you’re saving her from. 

Only that she’s asked you to.

“Go on,” Terezi says again, “rub my horns.”

This definitely isn't the friendzone but the only kisses have been chaste ones, everyone's clothes are _on_ and they don't show any signs of coming off but she is _purring_ and pressing her head into your knees and you are the undisputed champion of weirdest boner, it is you. The emperor of expendable erections. The czar of confusing cupidity. No, that was stupid.

You reach for her horns like handles and she guffaws. "I'm not a two-wheel device, coolkid!" 

"I don't see why I haven't mastered this yet,” you quip. “It’s not like we're two different species or something."

“Between your fingers,” she says, “sideways. Or rub with your thumbs. Or scratch the scalp around them. Don’t you know _anything_.”

You try an experimental swipe over the darker rings around the bases, and she makes a sound that you think is encouragement and leans in. You run your nails along her scalp, surely a lot blunter than what she’s used to, and pet her horns from base to tip, like the ears of a cat. But they aren't like a cat's ears; they are flat-hard, ridgy, such that your nails click against them. Your fingers are human-soft, and feel oddly inadequate to the task.

But you keep going, trying a little bit of everything. It's the way you've been given, to tell her: that she can care about Karkat and it's all right. That her ridiculous image manips, of all things, made you feel _understood_ , when you needed it badly.

She keeps giggling, derisively, like you’re getting it wrong, but she keeps purring, too, little quiet rumbles that echo in the weird acoustics of the metal-paneled room, and making little _hm_ noises, and you still have the weirdest boner. And... you can see the tension going out of her, feel her going warm and liquid, her head rolling back and forth across your knees.

“Are you just staying for the comedic value,” you ask, “or am I actually doing it right?” 

There’s a long moment where she’s only purring and giggling, and you consider asking again, but then she finally answers. “Yeah,” she says. “I think it’s working.”


End file.
